My Lords, I welcome the Statement. The Government are right to identify education as being the great life changer for many young people. It is right to place emphasis on the power of development through reading and to focus on early Intervention. It is often the case—sometimes Governments can be reluctant on this—that the dividends of that early intervention may be decades down the line, but that is all the more reason for ensuring that it happens.

It is often the case that many children who are in greatest need of that early intervention come from families who are disengaged from formal education—sometimes perhaps because of parental bad experience with formal education themselves—who are slightly disengaged from society as a whole or from the local community, or who are disengaged from involvement with government agencies. Can the Minister outline the Government’s strategy to ensure that those who might be described as hard-to-reach children are able to benefit from early intervention and are not left behind?